


fall back on me

by braigwen_s



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: (briefly by a newly disabled man), Ableist Language, Caretaking, Emotions, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Pain, Vetinari Is Sick And Tired (Literally) Disabled Agenda Writers Inc., mentions of disordered eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26119111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braigwen_s/pseuds/braigwen_s
Summary: Roberta Meserole sneaks into Ankh-Morpork, the Patrician speaks Genuan, and Drumknott gets a glass of water, in that order.  Also: an old woman cries and comforts her nephew.  They do not talk about kings, nor do they discuss Watches and weddings.  Some things, like blood, pain, and keeping up appearances, run deeper.Set briefly after the events of Men at Arms.
Relationships: Roberta Meserole & Havelock Vetinari, Roberta Meserole & Rufus Drumknott, Rufus Drumknott & Havelock Vetinari
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39





	fall back on me

**Author's Note:**

> Dog Italian (that is, poorly constructed attempts at Italian by nonspeakers, not the version spoken by dogs) makes a cameo as Genuan, because Vetinari is indisputably Italian and for some reason I've decided Roberta is Genuan. [EDIT: that reason is that it is apparently canon.]
> 
> Also, I said in the tags that Vetinari is "newly disabled," but this is only as far as canon is concerned. If you, like me, see him as disabled since birth (or childhood, or -) then you are more correct than my tagging.

“I have an appointment with the Patrician.”

Drumknott turned around to look to look at her. She was cloaked, but she removed her hood, revealing a tight face and tightly-pinned white hair. She watched him take in her tall, thin frame, her long, thin nose, her sharp hairline, and her sharp eyes. “Lady Roberta Meserole?” he inquired.

“Yes, Rufus Drumknott?” she answered him.

He looked decidedly unruffled for somebody she was deadly certain had not known she was coming. He did, though, attempt to probe her for information. “Have you been informed of your appointment?”

“I don’t need to be,” she said. She was already halfway to the office door. “Where is his Lordship?”

“In his office,” replied Drumknott, and now he did look ruffled, “but my lady –”

“Do come in,” said a man’s voice, and she gave the clerk a look that was not, in any way, ‘I-told-you-so-you-silly-boy’. Bobbi did slip through the door, and latched it behind her. Then she allowed herself to look into the room, and at its seated occupant.

“Havelock!” she said, rushing over. He turned his head to watch her, putting his quill down in a hurry, almost as an afterthought; ink splashed onto the paper he was signing. He wiped his hands on a plain cloth, and opened them up to her. Carefully, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, ignoring his proffered hands, and buried her face in his neck.

“Madam,” he said, his voice thin, and she lifted her head back up and shushed him, placing two fingers over his lips.

“Don’t do that to me!” she said. “If you must get yourself shot with experimental weaponry, either make it minor or clean and quick and be done with it! Don’t just leave me waiting for days in Psuedopolis, too frightened to start the trip over in case a letter or clacks missed me!”

“I didn’t mean to,” he protested, but he had to wipe his eyes with his dark sleeve; Roberta dabbed at her own with a lacy white handkerchief. “Madam, we are both entirely too old for this.”

“Don’t you dare say that, Havelock Vetinari. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you didn’t stand when you saw me.”

“I’m a head of state, you know. It tends to be the other way around.”

“You still call me ‘Madam’ – don’t try! Havelock, just – please. Tell me.”

His gaze dropped down, and he seemed to be stewing for words, dipping a ladle in for sentences. “The guild of barber-surgeons say I’ll never run again, and the wizards say I’ll never dance again. I’m going to prove them both wrong, but it’s too deep and too damaged … it will be awkward and ungainly and I’ll look like a cripple trying to be well. Oh gods, I _am_ –”

She cupped his cheeks with both her hands, letting his tears brush her fingertips. “Havelock, you’ve never needed your legs. Your mind and your soul are both keener than hundreds of other people’s put together.” It wasn’t an exaggeration – if anything, it downplayed his intellect, which at the age of nine had far outstripped every teacher she could find. “ _Non dubitare. Sei abbastanza_ [1]. You are right, we are too old for this.”

“ _Zia Bobbi_ ,” he said, and from then spoke Genuan with her. It felt like an admission, that he was speaking in his mother tongue, in this office. At least, it felt like it was one to him. _Morporkia is founded from immigrants_ , she thought at the walls, her jaw setting. He only called her ‘aunt Bobbi’ in the language of his childhood – in Morporkian, she had always been ‘Madam’. “Aunt Bobbi, the fact of the matter is,” he said, then paused, not certain what the fact of the matter was. He swayed, slightly, in his seat, and his eyes glazed over for a fraction of a second. She frowned at him, sweeping her gaze over the man who had once been her child. There was heavy makeup under his eyes, but no creams or powders could hide the stark hollow of his cheeks. He had always been slightly built, but …

“Havelock,” she said, already knowing the answer, “have you been eating?” Whatever spies were listening probably knew Genuan, but it still gave one a figment of security, not to use the common language in the city.

“I have been prioritising.”

“Have you been sleeping, then? Drinking water?”

“I’ve been surviving.” The way he said it implied it was an achievement. Bobbi knew well that it was; she dropped the subject. Havelock always did what he could.

“How much pain are you in?” she asked instead.

“Perhaps I could imagine more, if A’tuin bit me in half.”

Bobbi’s chest felt tight, and she had to take half a moment to be collected, sweeping around a virtual dustpan. She released his face from custody, stood up, walked around the desk, and arrayed herself in the chair opposite him. “Mister Drumknott,” she called, in Morporkian. The office door opened, and the small secretary phased into the doorway. “If I could have a glass of water,” she said, and he nodded and slipped away. Less than a second later, the door clicked softly shut again.

He raised one eyebrow at her, and she raised her own right back. “So help me, Havelock, I will feed you a meal mouthful by mouthful and then sit up with you at night.”

He deliberately was not looking at the spilled ink on his paperwork. “I am not an unruly child with a fever.” She reached across the desk, over the blotched-dark papers, and pressed her thin, papery hand against his forehead, just to tease him. Drumknott rapped softly against the door. 

“Thank you,” said Bobbi, and held the full glass in her hand smiling politely, until Drumknott glanced viper-swift at Havelock, and gave a minute nod to nobody in specific. He left the room again, and she, as she’d threatened, gently coaxed him through emptying the glass, sip by sip.

“ _Grazie_ ,” she told him, squeezing his hand, and smiled in return as the side of his mouth shifted. She glanced over at the clock, and decided it was bedtime. From the twitch of is shoulders, he noticed the moment her mind was made. “Your lordship,” she said airily, “your poor old aunt’s traveled a very long way, and is tired. Could you guide her to her guestroom.” She placed a full stop on that sentence, in place of a question mark. If Havelock Vetinari was given a question mark, he could turn it to a thesis. She would normally permit him this – normally, she was far beyond permitting or forbidding him – but, if she were utterly honest with herself, she needed to mother-hen him, for her own psychological needs. Just for an hour. New weaponry and old aunts didn’t match, but far, far worse was new weaponry when mingled with middle-aged nephews.

“My ‘poor old aunt’ must take my hand, then,” he said, “to be steady.” With these words, he allowed her to ease him out of his seat.

A common misconception was that Bobbi’s eyes were ice blue. In actual fact, they were mid-brown, but her cutting, all-knowing gaze was so much like her nephew’s the association made itself, and coloured – so to speak – how her eyes – once again – were seen. Her brown eyes looked over the shape left by his black robes as he shifted, and even as he fell she analysed the movements. His leg appeared to react strongly to his attempt at weight-bearing, twisting and buckling underneath him. He started to steady himself, but she beat him to that job, catching him with a strength that was surprising only to somebody who didn’t know Havelock either. His jaw was set, and she could feel the tenseness of his arm.

She sent up a very indignant few words to Blind Io, but silently, because praying to deities was one of the few things they disagreed on innately. Carefully, he straightened up, and took one step across the floor of his office, limping horrifically. She squeezed his hand; neither had anything to say they didn’t already know. She looked for Drumknott as they passed into Havelock’s waiting room, but he was lurking in shadows; she respected his implicit requirement, and pretended he wasn’t there.

After they had made it into a convenient secret passage, Havelock let out a small, strangled sound of pain, but kept walking. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and passed the test. Nevertheless, he must have wanted to reassure her, because he hurried to imply this state was merely temporary (‘aren’t all states?’ she would tease him, if they had thirty fewer years on them).

“I will have a cane commissioned,” he said. By that he meant ‘designed for combat’. 

Roberta knew most people would suspect any aid doubled as a weapon. She also knew they’d expect a hidden blade, and that, because of this conception, Havelock would have it weighted for blunt force, to use to impact instead of cut. “Good,” she said, simply.

He made a small sound through his closed mouth, the kind that said about a hundred words but made clear six of them were ‘you are in your eighties, Madam’. “What about you?”

“Do you know, my dear,” she said, their arms linked together as they made their slow way through the palace, “I have noticed that, if one is seen as powerful enough, they may freely lean on another and have it seen the other way around.”

**Author's Note:**

> [1]: “No more doubting. You are enough.”


End file.
